Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Trees are budding, flowers are blooming, and school is concluding. After an extremely chilly and snowy winter I know I am not alone with hoping the warm weather appears rapidly.

With May only a couple days away I wanted to remind all College Republicans that this weekend is our May Resolution Weekend! Many of you were able to attend our first, and quite successful, Resolution Weekend in April. This event will be relatively similar.

This time, however, we will be in Jackson, Michigan. We are planning on leaving again from C.C. near the flagpole around 5:00pm on Friday. Check in time at our hotel will be around 7:00-7:30pm Friday evening and we will be done Saturday around 3:00pm to head home. Yes, it will be a relatively short trip but it will have an enormous impact on elections.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

New to GRCC is a group of students who are doing everything in their power to change laws to allow concealed weapons on campuses. They are part of a nationwide organization call the Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, or SCCC. Being Republicans, we understand their logic. The idea is that if people who are able to carry concealed weapons everywhere else in the state were allowed to carry them on campus, then school shootings at colleges would decline because students and professors would be able to defend themselves against madmen. There is a lot of opposition to this logic but the logical answers to these challenges can be found here. I strongly recommend reading that link as there is a wealth of good information there.

This week the SCCC is participating in an Empty Holster Protest. The idea is that everyone in the SCCC is to wear an empty holster to school all day every day of this week. This should attract a lot of attention and when asked they tell about what they are aiming for. I myself took part in the protest yesterday and will be there tomorrow and Thursday. When I was there, I also handed out fliers and told people about our group, trying to recruit more members. I met with a lot of success. Many believe in our cause.

I should mention that the SCCC is entirely nonpartisan. They are not a Republican group. Obviously, we Republicans are supporting them but it is important that people realize that Republicans and the SCCC are different entities.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Chances are, at some point in your life, the aforementioned questions have crossed your mind. You may find answers to those questions as I do: in the realm of a loving Creator. Such an ideal is not a popular one with the ‘intellectual’ crowd. Often times, believing in a Creator leads to persecution, mocked and belittled, from Dawkins in many walks of life, especially in the [governmentally funded] classroom.

Ben Stein, you know the boring teacher from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, who stood at the front of the class taking attendance, “Bueller, Bueller?” Yesterday, April 18th, Steins new film, EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed, opened in select theaters nation wide. His new documentary gives macro-evolutional theory a deserved hard time, and Ben has fun with it along the way.

Interviewed by World magazine, Stein was asked: In an ideal world, what impact would you like to see this documentary have?

Stein: I would want it to open freedom of speech at schools and universities so that people could express their concerns and reservations about Darwinism and any subject in science related to macroevolution so that one small group would not have a lock on what’s discussed on campuses.

On its way to the House of Representatives in Florida is a bill that would ensure academic freedom that mandates you cannot be punished for questioning Darwinism. Missouri is about to introduce a similar bill as well. But it is completely unfortunate that we should even need such laws, in a land of freedom of expression and thought, but apparently we do.

Ben Stien shares a potentially dangerous message, so buckle up and hold on:

We tolerate free speech in any other part of society, but not here. What makes this any different? In my experience, people are confident in their ideas and are not afraid of criticism. So that tells me that Darwinists are afraid. They are hiding something. I now realize it is my duty to get the word out. To warn others before it is too late. So I am going to begin by warning you. Feel free to watch this film if you must and I hope you do. But you got to know that doing so could land you in a heap of trouble. Some of you are going to lose your friends for watching this film. Some of you may even lose your jobs. In fact, if you are a scientist with any hope of a future, I suggest you leave right now. College or high school students, especially teachers, legislators, journalists, any one else with a stake in this debate should probably leave now as well. But if you do leave, will anyone be left to fight this battle? Anyone? Anyone?

I urge everyone to view this documentary. The media and the scientific world are doing their best to keep Creationism silent, but let your voice be heard and watch EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed, which is in theaters now.

I want to leave one thought with you from Paul Little:

There are many real things outside the scope of verification by the scientific method. The scientific method is useful only with measurable things. No one has ever seen three feet of love or two pounds of justice, but one would be foolish indeed to deny their reality. To insist that God be proved by the scientific method is like insisting that a telephone be used to measure radioactivity.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

The Resolution Weekend last Friday and Saturday was most definitely a success. Six of us from GRCC drove down to Oakland County and met at Oakland University to get organized and discuss petitions. We were trained in how to circulate petitions and also how to become precinct delegates. After the speeches, we had dinner and socialized. Socializing with other College Republicans is always a pleasure. We get to know people we should know and have a great time doing it. In this world, one always benefits from knowing the right people, and the right people were there at the resolution weekend.

After dinner we started putting literature together to give to people on Saturday. One would think that stuffing four pieces of lit in each newspaper bag would be boring, but anything is a good time when done with friends and those who are likeminded. Political discussions with liberals can often be taxing but the same discussions are much fun for me personally when had with fellow conservatives.

The next day, we gathered again at OU and met Joe Knollenberg himself, who spoke to us about our mission that day. We also heard from Jack Hoogendyk, who is taking on Carl Levin for the US Senate this November. It is such a blessing to listen to men such as these who really care about the little guys in our party. Afterward, I stood and chatted with Knollenberg himself, and I must say it is exciting to chat with a man who is in the US House of Representatives. I’m shy and didn’t really know what to say, but I must say that it was a motivating experience.

I was more than happy to go door to door to support this man in this vital reelection campaign. While we were distributing literature, we asked each person a few questions and asked them to sign a petition, which was to get Jack Hoogendyk on the ballot. It turns out that Hoogendyk still needs more signatures to get him on the ballot for US Senate. Many people signed and we made much progress.

The most exciting thing about this is that we were making a serious political difference. For years, I’ve wanted to make things better in this world. Do we all? But now I’m getting a serious opportunity. By getting going door to door, talking with people, and getting them to sign petitions, we are getting better people into office to displace those who wouldn’t be beneficial. We young college students are making a big difference. Only about 1% of Americans do anything at all in politics, and by doing this we’ve entered into the 1% most influential people in America. Can you tell this excites me yet?

Making a difference isn’t restricted to the people who went last weekend. Right now, any number of you Gentle Readers can go to the nearest Republican headquarters and grab petitions for Hoogendyk and get people signing. We need 15,000 signatures statewide before May 13th I believe.

There is one last opportunity I want to mention to you, and it is explained on Right Michigan. Basically we’re circulating more another petition to get an excellent man and a strong conservative a position as judge in the 4th District Court of Appeals. We plan to make a day trip of it this Saturday. If you clink the link above to Right Michigan you will see all the details you need to get involved!

Thursday, April 3, 2008

A group of us from GRCC and friends of those from GRCC are heading to Oakland Couinty to help Congressman Joe Knollenberg win a contested seat in Congress.

We will gather near the flagpole at the bostwick commons at CC at noon on Friday. From there we will head to Oakland County to try to be there by 5:00 PM. I'm giving us some extra time in case traffic or something holds us up but we want to be prompt.

There will be a seminar and a dinner on Fiday night which looks to be a great event to attend. On Saturday we will be passing out literature for Congressman Knollenberg and will have lunch with the congressman himself. Indeed, I believe he will be going door to door with us as well.

The seat is contested and it is important that we keep it. When we do, you can say that you have influenced politics in a good way.

At around 5:00 we will be finished and will head home, satisfied with another successful event. Our goal is to get twenty people to join us from our group, which will be a great help.

Sadly, we've been getting a bit of a troll on here recently and now have to moderate our comments. a liberal was using our site to proclaim more liberal trash in the comments section than our posts had room to promote sensible, conservative reasoning. We hoped to ignore it, but the problem grew to the extent that we've decided to moderate comments. To all those who have valuable input, fear not. We value your views, even if they do not concur with ours. We are open to a dialogue. We are avoiding only long propaganda filled streams of random liberalism. We haven't had this problem yet, but I would like to note that really we're against any comments that outdo our posts' length. This is our blog, not a blog for everyone to get on their soapbox. Let's keep the comments as actual comments and not long winded articles

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

ANNOUNCEMENT: Before I begin the post I would like to mention that we are heading to Rochester to campaign for Congressman Joe Knollenberg on the 11th and 12th of this month. I will post on this soon, but if you want more information now, go to this link on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=12343976494

Once again, we headed down to Kalamazoo to see a speaker invited by the Western Michigan University College Republicans. This time the speaker was Ted Nugent and as usual it was an amazing event. We Republicans got our pictures taken with Ted, enjoyed a reception, and got autographs, yet in my mind, the best part was the speech itself.

Nugent’s passion was refreshing. We often hear famous people passionately speak out against our beliefs, but rarely for them. I thought he was an excellent balance to John Stossel as well. While Stossel reached for our minds, Nugent reached for our hearts. This is not to say that Nugent did not have the facts and statistics to back up what he said. Rather I mean that his focus was getting us energized about passionately pursuing our goals. He repeatedly told us that we need to get out there and fight for what is good however we can, whether that means talking to politicians, joining the NRA, or doing whatever else can influence people for the better.

I have some quotes from Nugent that I particularly enjoyed and thought I would share them with you.

ABOUT THE SECOND AMENDMENT:“The Second Amendment is an individual, God given, right”“Every mass shooting of innocents in America happens in a gun free zone”“Every time I hear the term ‘Animal rights’ I go and kill an extra hundred of something”

ABOUT THE WAR IN IRAQ:“Our warriors have studied the war. They knew what they were getting into when they joined. They looked into what could happen to them in Iraq AND THEY CHOSE TO GO!”“Man is driven to do good and stop evil”“War IS the answer. Good people war on evil”“The diplomacy is over”I want to note about this last quote, that we tried diplomacy with Iraq for an entire decade before we went in. It failed, and that is what he was referring to.

ABOUT MICHIGAN:“The real curse of Michigan is not the jihad of the left, but the apathy of the right”

ABOUT HIS CRITICS:“My critics are the wind beneath my wings”“If the assholes don’t like you, that just proves you’re not an asshole”Note: on two separate occasions, a student yelled out “f--- you” and Nugent loved that more than anything else

FINAL EXHORTATION:“Go forth! Raise Hell!”

As you can tell, Nugent wasn’t anything near politically correct, which was, again, very refreshing. We try not to say anything that will allow the liberals to destroy us in the eyes of those whom they’ve duped. It was refreshing to see someone who didn’t care what the liberals said about him.